By Robert Lawrence Kuhn
John Searle, titan of contemporary philosophy, distinguished philosopher of mind, philosopher of language, and philosopher of social concerns—who made seminal contributions to each of these fields—died on September 17, 2025. John was an original and long-time contributor to Closer Truth, and while we mourn his death, we celebrate his intellectual life.
John’s death hit me hard. He was one of my in-essence tutors in developing and building Closer To Truth because he taught me how to think. He did so through his books, papers, reviews, and, of course, our personal conversations. John appeared in four TV episodes on the very first season of Closer To Truth, filmed in 1999 (broadcast in 2000). He had come down from UC Berkeley, where he was a star professor for decades, to a small PBS TV station in Orange County, CA (then KOCE, now PBS SoCal), to appear in an unknown series (never broadcast) with an unknown host (never on TV), and he did so with grace and characteristic passion. He was plain spoken, disarmingly rough-hewn, but with a clarity, depth, and insight that were breathtaking.
I learned a great deal from John, most importantly, as I said, how to think. I distinctly remember, at a dinner with fellow panelists following a long day of filming in 1999, John’s legendary incisiveness. One of the panelist-professors decided to deliver a rather elaborate disquisition on some philosophy of mind topic. John responded with two words, “What follows?” In fact, nothing followed when thought through carefully; the entire argument went nowhere.
From that moment onward, “What follows?” became something of an internal watchword for me, helping me to focus on the meanings and implications of propositions and assertions, both in my Closer To Truth interviewing and in my writing. When so engaged, I often see, in my mind’s eye, John asking, “What follows?”
I am not unaware of Berkeley’s determination that John had violated university policies against sexual harassment and that his emeritus title had been revoked. I can speak only of that which I know first-hand, and for all this, I express great admiration and deep appreciation for John Searle.
Viewers can watch John Searle on Closer To Truth: 24 CTT videos, 18 CTT TV episodes (one of the highest ratios of TV episodes to videos among CTT’s >500 contributors), and 4 Roundtable archives. One of my favorite CTT episodes, Can Brain Alone Explain Consciousness, features John and David Chalmers, with their diverse approaches to consciousness, at three points in time: 1999 (together on the same Roundtable), 2007, and 2014.
John Searle’s intellectual legacy lives on.